Icewind wrote on Dec 12, 2013, 13:57:Why does everyone whine about that?

because it sucks?

i dont know, ask everyone

Thanks for that eloquent rebuttal.

You reinvigorate my standing theory that those who whine about it are just petulant, demanding children who have no skill with CRPGs.

Either that or like most kids you parrot what others say on forums and tout that as part of your learned experience.

Simple fact is, that 13 year time limit is way more time than even the most casual of wasteland explorers need to 100% the game. Anyone saying otherwise is a poser.

Or not.

I played Fallout 1 (back when it came out) and had my game ruined because of the time limit. Instead of faffing around with a water chip, I decided to explore the wasteland over to the farthest corners of the map and try to score some cool gear. By the time I got back around to the water chip, my time limit was up and my game was over. I had to go back to a really early save, at which point I rage quit.

I did go back and beat Fallout later, but the time limit sucks. It doesn't make any sense either. It's not like *my character* was running out of water... But no, boom, you failed a quest objective so your game is done. Haha. Try again.

Task wrote on Dec 6, 2013, 15:34:If you folks don't have patience to read, then your probably shouldn't read books. I play games specifically as visual novels. Even if I can SEE the "novels" world, it still needs to tell me something, the characters in it need be believable in their world. I hate trying to watch other people plays games and they constantly press ENTER to skip dialogue, which is why I don't physically watch people play games. I want it to tell me a story, rather than a simple dialogue.

Even a mundane seeming quest or character can be made exceptional if its woven into the game in a good way, if the developers and story tellers are up to the task. If they aren't up to the task, well then of course skipping the dialogue would be a good option.

I also play a lot of console jRPG's and those have loads of dialogue and story telling, so I'm kind of used to sitting there and listening.

Games are a visual medium - they need to show, not tell.

If I want to play a text game like Zork, okay. But I'm not, I'm playing a graphical game where everything is represented graphically in the world space. It just doesn't require that much dialogue.

What Bethesda lacks is characterization. Their one-liners are bland and give the characters little differentiation for the most part. A good writer doesn't need pages of dialogue to get that across though.

Acleacius wrote on Dec 6, 2013, 13:43:They make a great world to adventure through, amazing editors and have overall very good story plots. But I can't think of any AAA RPG game developer with worst writers, in story, dialog and NPCs.

I'm playing through SWKOTOR2 right now and some of the characters are just one info-dump after another. I "got" what was going on after the first two lines but I'm having to click through a wall of text so I can get to go DO something (doing something being the point of a game).

I'm actually starting to lean more towards liking NPCs that have simple dialogue. If I want to read a lot of back story or detailed explanation I'd much rather read it in an in-game journal or book.

This goes doubly if I have to listen to a voice actor read from a script.

The story that the Morse code comes out with is pretty interesting. There actually were a couple hoax sites recently but they've abruptly closed their hoaxes down.

I kind of doubt Bethesda would allow a site with the Vault-Tec logo to operate for weeks and deliver some mysterious payload at the end. I think it would have been pulled by now - or people would have at least been warned that Bethsoft wasn't the ones making it. I mean, it's hit general gamer press. It's not like they don't know it's there.

Dunno if anyone is still reading this thread, but this site just popped up. If you change the size of your browser window to make all the circles sort of concentric then when the explosion cloud pops up you can see the number 4 made out of sparkles.

dumpy wrote on Dec 3, 2013, 16:48:As enjoyable as most Bethesda games are (I'm currently playing through both Skyrim and Fallout 3), they're usually fairly buggy. Best option might be to wait 6 to 12 months for patches and mod maturity.

But that's not going to happen.

It's true. I just wade through the bugs. I play Bethesda games for years so it doesn't bother me if my first play-through is not optimal.

Waiting is a better deal monetarily though. Usually in a year or so you can get GOTY on sale and by that time there are usually some good mods too.

(A vault technician opens 119 to any survivors of the initial attack. IT is possible 7667 is the code needed to enter the Vault)

“Calling all stations, calling all stations, calling all stations, this is Vault Technician 2510730 one six emergency Vault-Tec shelter for survivors in Quabbin, number 119, repeat, emergency Vault-Tec shelter for survivors in Quabbin, number 119, over”

(The radio operator who attempted to reach the NCRA realizes Boston is now gone and that there is no hope)

Someone, presumably a synthetic humanoid (android), attempts to hack into the Overseer's computer but uses a wrong code - 15812 instead of 15334 -and the incorrect log-in marks the android as an enemy. The message below is left on the computer)

Silicon Avatar wrote on Dec 2, 2013, 17:00:I think retail built up BF and now Cyber Monday with some awesome deals early on to establish the reputation and now they've pulled back. A lot of the "deals" I saw weren't mind-blowing and with places like Wal*Mart who get special (crap) versions of electronics made just for their store you have to watch where you shop too.

Half the people I saw in stores were price-checking against Amazon on their smart phones too. I want to feel sorry for retail but at the same time the writing has been on the wall for them to adapt for 15 years now.

Yeah, but it's a double edged sword. Because a lot of larger ticket items you'll never buy without seeing them live first. And then dealing with warranties, returns, etc. And with price matching in most cases I'd still prefer to buy that sort of stuff brick and mortar.

Yeah, there's that.

Shoes and clothes are stuff I still don't like to buy online. There is too much variation in fit between styles and brands and I don't really like to go into a real store, try stuff on, and then buy it online cheaper. I know people who do that but to me that's too far. I figure if I'm using somebody's store to demo and maybe using a salesman's time then I should buy it from that store.